I Spy with very little mind

The new action comedy I Spy provides some important services
and teaches some valuable lessons to the student of contemporary cinema,
especially the well-known Hollywood variety. To begin with, the movie's
marketers copied Winston Churchill's World War II strategy of carpet bombing,
opening the picture in what seems like every multiplex in the country, with
show times scheduled practically around the clock. That kind of saturation
would probably guarantee box office success for almost any film, from some arty
basement flick to a musical featuring Phil Spitalny and His All-Girl Orchestra
playing songs from the plays of Henry James. For a flick that stars a popular comic
actor grinning and mugging against an exotic landscape illuminated by
explosions, the results should prove most satisfying for its makers.

The
movie also attains a certain special place --- which, unfortunately, it does
not occupy alone --- as a good example of Hollywood at its most blatantly
commercial, its most wasteful, and its most appallingly unimaginative.

I Spy owes its
existence to an ancient television series of the same name from the dark,
backward abysm of time known as the 1960s. The popular show originally starred
Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. It helped turn Cosby, then a stand-up comic, into a
major star, and employed its light, flimsy espionage plots in one of the great
traditions of American literature: as a means to explore the friendship between
a black man and a white man. In a time of significant racial tension, when many
American cities were erupting into arson, riot, and anarchy, the show possessed
a special relevance, which the current movie tends to exaggerate and parody.

The
motion picture departs drastically from the format of the series, but maintains
that interracial relationship --- this time, in the persons of Eddie Murphy and
Owen Wilson --- as the major subject embedded in the context of its otherwise
entirely ridiculous situation. Wilson plays a bumbling secret agent named Alex
Scott, who helps persuade the middleweight boxing champion of the world, Kelly
Robinson (Murphy), to work with him on a dangerous mission to recover a stolen
American stealth airplane (so stealthy it can be rendered invisible) from an
international arms dealer named Arnold Gundars (Malcolm McDowell). The pair
travel to Budapest, where Robinson will defend his championship and distract
Gundars, the promoter of the match, while Scott recaptures the plane.

The
absurd plot serves as the excuse for the usual panoply of what contemporary
movie audiences often mistake for filmmaking --- all the wild chases, dangerous
stunts, shootouts, pyrotechnics, and special optical effects that a large group
of highly skilled technicians and a slick, expensive Hollywood machine can
create. The many writers --- always a bad sign --- and the director, the
consistently stolid and completely uninteresting Betty Thomas, add what they
apparently believe are elements of character to the mix with a beautiful female
agent (Famke Janssen), who's the object of Scott's affections; and, of course,
the developing relationship between Scott and Robinson, which at least accounts
for a few laughs.

The
entire cast manages the difficult task of transforming a film that probably
began life as a lavish but lighthearted spoof, intended as yet another vehicle
for Eddie Murphy, into a heavy-handed and grossly overplayed farce. Murphy
plays the boxer as the usual egomaniacal athlete who tools around in a stretch
limo accompanied by a gaggle of girlfriends and an entourage of sycophants,
speaking of himself in the third person, grinning, cracking wise, giggling at
his own jokes, and ultimately dominating the whole picture. He's always fun to
watch, but the performance is so loud, repetitive, and laboriously monotone
that he ultimately siphons all the meaning out of the action and his character.

For
not entirely clear reasons, Owen Wilson appears to be receiving a big push from
the folks who control the film industry, appearing in no less than three films
within the last year or so, including the allegedly relevant and earnest war
flick Behind Enemy Lines. His
pleasantly goofy looks, jumpy nervousness, and high-pitched voice suggest that
he should stick to comedy, but he's already repeating gestures and expressions
from his previous movies, with no discernible difference between his comic and
his serious roles. Malcolm McDowell, who specializes in playing bad guys in bad
movies, appears almost every night on one of the many cable movie channels in
some straight-to-video release (he shares that constant exposure with such
personages as Rutger Hauer, Eric Roberts, Stephen Baldwin, and my personal
favorite, the ex-wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper). In I Spy, McDowellcontinues
his usual glowering, smirking, and sneering, adding yet another link to a chain
of rotten performances.

Perhaps
the best explanation for the trivial nonsense of I Spy lies in its origin back in that old television series. The
picture's slightness and emptiness demonstrate the problems frequently involved
in turning an episodic TV show into a movie: the limited cast, the single plot,
the simple conflicts. Like all the Star
Trek flicks and the film translation of The
X Files, the work tends to look merely like a more lavish version of a
one-hour show, with better sets, a few extraneous scenes tacked on, and
everybody talking slower. This movie belongs with all those Malcolm McDowell
masterpieces on cable, but alas, it will probably earn a tidy profit for all
involved --- another sad lesson from Hollywood.